Timeless Textures Thank You

Those of you who know me well, or at least follow my blog, know that I love texture. Because of this, I was immediately drawn to this card by Dena Rekow.

Dena's card employs texture in a few ways:

1. By using a patterned paper
2. By stamping with ink with the Timeless Textures Stamp Set
3. By stamping with water

Yes, you read that right! Stamping with water is a really neat technique that produces texture by subtracting color! But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I decided to CASE Dena's card but change up the colors and use it for thank you cards for my stamping group.

I started by cutting a standard card base from Basic Black. I cut a skinny Island Indigo matte and finally a matte from a piece of the Typeset DSP.

I used Island Indigo with the mottled edge stamp from Timeless Textures to stamp around the outside of the matte. I then used another of the stamps to stamp a couple of times with Basic Black Archival ink on the matte itself.

I cut a tag for the card from Whisper White by using a die from the Lots of Labels Framelits Dies. I used a sponge dauber to color the entire tag with Bermuda Bay ink and then covered it again using Island Indigo ink. Using the swirly stamp from Timeless Textures, I spritzed it 4-5 times with my Mini Mister (until water beaded on the stamp). I then stamped it onto the paper and held it there for about 10 seconds.

What was left was a very light swirl stamp that deepened as it dried. I stamped it a second time and then made sure it was totally dry by zapping it with my Heat Tool. I then stamped the sentiment from the Crazy About You Stamp Set using Basic Black Archival ink.

I adhered the stamped matte to the Island Indigo matte using Snail Adhesive. A length of the 3/8" Basic Black Stitched Ribbon was knotted around the matte. This was then adhered with Dimensionals to the Basic Black card front.

The edges of the tag were inked with Basic Black Archival ink and then it was adhered with Dimensionals to the card front.

A matte of Whisper White was cut for the inside. (This is where I made an error but it was too late to correct. I should have used a Very Vanilla matte for the inside because the Typeset Paper has a Very Vanilla background rather than one that is white.) I inked the edges with the same stamp as on the front of the card and stamped one swirl stamp. The matte was adhered with Fast Fuse Adhesive to complete the card.

What is important to note about this card technique is that Clear Mount stamps were used. I'm not sure if Photopolymer stamps would work as well for this technique. In addition the stamps were "distressed" stamps so that weird effects from the water would be acceptable.

I will definitely use this technique again and I will try it with Photopolymer stamps to see if my hypothesis is valid. I'm thinking that the Awesomely Artistic Stamp Set might be a good one to try. The First Sight Stamp Set would also be another possibility. Even Kinda Eclectic could produce some neat results! It will be fun to experiment to see what works best!

I hope you try the water stamping technique–let me know how it works for you!